10 replies to this topic

[maxxx15]

hello everyone,
i have bought a seagate goflex 2tb external harddisk. . is it possible to install windows or any other os in this external hdd. .if yes then i would like to know the procedure. .i have googled a lot on this but in vain. .plz help.
thanks in advance!

[ComputerEd]

Gonna depend on the motherboard and if it will accept a boot from USB device. You will need to go into the BIOS and configure for it to see a USB drive as a Hard Drive. Unless this is a USB3 device or a ESATA this is gonna be really slow.

[90sgamer]

If that HDD is USB 2.0 you should be able to see it when you boot up your windows disk and install to it. Anything that needs an extra driver (USB 3.0 for instance) you won't be able to see because the driver for the controller isn't on the windows disk.

HOWEVER this is VERY inadvisable. Your boot up and general use will be very slow compared to an internal SATA connected drive. Why do you want to use an external drive as your OS drive? It really defeats the purpose of being external.

If you have a desktop, you should take the Hard drive out of that case attach it inside your computer via SATA. However, even then, usually the hard drives found in those external drives are pretty slow, have low cache, and have energy saving features that reduce performance (like WD's caviar greens which are found in their external drives)

If you have a laptop, you are going to have to haul that thing where ever you go, and if you ever disconnect it, your computer will obviously be unusable.

You haven't found anything on Google because this really doesn't make any sense, At all.
Sorry man.

Tell us more about the situation to see if there is some other option to help you out.

[bigball1]

Plus if you install windows, depending on the ver. It will only work with the computer you are using it on, as the drivers wont work. Unless its 7.

But why are you doing this?

[Waco]

Installing Windows (of any type) on a portable partition isn't officially supported at all. If you can even get it working, it's likely it'll break with future updates. Why do you want to boot from USB anyway?

[maxxx15]

i want to instal windows in an external hdd coz i travel a lot and need to carry my data.Recently i came across a pc with no os in my workspace and i was to do a presentation. Since the windows installion disk was not around, i came up with the idea to install windows with some basic drivers on my external hdd.

I tried to install winxp but after d installation files were copied,when it restarted,it came up with blue screen showing windows has encountered a problem and need to close. .

If not windows then is it ppssible to install linux? i mean 'install' not a startup disk. .plz rply

[Waco]

You can boot and run a small Linux distro off of a thumb drive very easily. There are quite a few distros designed exactly for that purpose (though I haven't kept up with them in recent years).

[bigball1]

You can boot and run a small Linux distro off of a thumb drive very easily. There are quite a few distros designed exactly for that purpose (though I haven't kept up with them in recent years).

Those work great!!!

You can also do one on a dvd/cd too. Plus a thumb drive for your info.

All you need is to make sure the system can boot off a thumb drive. Which mostly anything in the last 5-6 years can. No need to worry about drivers crashing, not installed, anything.

[maxxx15]

Thanx Waco.
can you name such distros?

[IVIYTH0S]

You can boot and run a small Linux distro off of a thumb drive very easily. There are quite a few distros designed exactly for that purpose (though I haven't kept up with them in recent years).

3rded
get a nicely sized (I'd say 16GB minimum) USB flash drive and make it bootable for a live cd setup or some distros may just have a utility that automatically sets it up as one.

[maxxx15]

3rded
get a nicely sized (I'd say 16GB minimum) USB flash drive and make it bootable for a live cd setup or some distros may just have a utility that automatically sets it up as one.

Thanx everyone..Finally I got what i wanted!!